The Cutting Room Floor of Memory
by Musetta Lulu
Summary: I've been dying to write a RENT characters in high school fic, so this one will feature most of them. Details inside. Rating may be upped. Contains sexuality, teen drinking, violence, language and themes.
1. Part 1: Without a Script

**A/N:** Yes, I'm writing something! Eep! I'd always wanted to do one of those RENT-characters-as-high-schoolers fics. So here's my shot, please review and tell me if you like it or if I suck. I don't love my first chapter, but it will get VERY dramatic starting at part 2.

**Category: **RENT, show-verse and not movie-verse.

**Pairings:** Nothing hard to handle. Mark/Roger (platonic, will never be slash), Mark/Maureen, Roger/April, Mimi/Angel (platonic)

**Rating: **T for now, for sexuality, language, violence and themes. May rise later, but for now we'll leave it at T.

**Disclaimer:** Although I wouldn't mind being able to say that I do, I don't own RENT or its characters and am truly sorry to be this blasphemous to Jonathan Larson (may he rest in peace) by ripping off his great work to create this. Well, it IS the opposite of war. All titles, including fic title, are derived from Mr. Larson's work. Any resemblance between the events in this fic and anyone's life or anyone else's fanfic is purely coincidental.

**Summary: **The RENT characters deal with issues in what certainly aren't the best years of their lives. Mark and Roger, 17, live in Scarsdale as Roger faces problems with an abusive, alcoholic father. Mark's dating Maureen, also 17, who lives over in Hicksville. Elsewhere, Collins, 18 and a senior, acts up, and Mimi and Angel, both 15, deal with life in the Alphabet City.

And now, the fic.

**The Cutting Room Floor of Memory**

**Part 1—Without a Script**

Mark Cohen looked out at the rain pelting the window of the cozy Scarsdale house. A fire crackled merrily in the quaint fireplace. Mark and his best friend, Roger Davis, had stoked it themselves, Mark's stern father breathing down their necks (waiting for Mark to drop a match and set the house on fire, giving him another reason to be disgruntled towards his son, Mark thought). The seventeen-year-old pointed the video camera, a family gift for Hanukah many years ago that nobody but Mark would ever use, at the fire for a moment before switching it back to Roger.

His friend was sitting on the arm of a doily-bedecked sofa, Mark's mother's favorite, with the secondhand Fender guitar he valued above everything else he owned.

"Here's Roger, about to give us a demonstration of pure talent," Mark said, in full narrator mode. Roger picked out a chord, and both teenagers winced as he struck a sour note.

"Better tune that thing, Rog," Mark grinned. He glanced over at the phone, afraid it would ring, and it would be Maureen…

"Stop doing that, Mark. It's annoying," Roger said. He was tuning his guitar, tongue between teeth.

"Doing what?" asked Mark absentmindedly.

"That look at the phone. She's not gonna call." He made a face. "If she even exists…"

"Oh, Rog, don't start this again…"

"Come on, Mark. You, the seventeen-year-old Geek of the Year, scoring a girlfriend who's gorgeous and talented and all the other things you say she is, whom you just _happened _to meet in a coffee shop when I wasn't there, up in _Hicksville_ when you were visiting some ancient family member, and of course have been calling each other every day since and going on conveniently vague dates whenever you feel like blowing me off? Am I supposed to swallow that? What do you take me for?" Roger chuckled.

"Oh, she's real all right…"

"And you've hired someone to call and pretend to be her?" He put on a falsetto voice in an imitation of a girl's. "Oooh, Marky, my lover, I can't come down from Hicksville today like we planned because my kitty died. And because I'm a figment of your…" Roger's sardonic laughter was cut short by a ring from the doorbell.

Mark's heart fluttered as he went to open the door. He pulled it wide open.

There she was. Wet, wearing a hoodie sweater to keep from the November chill, curly brown hair soaked from the rain, Maureen Johnson stepped over the threshold and threw her arms around Mark's neck. Somewhere behind them, Roger's jaw dropped.

After a long, long embrace, Mark and Maureen pulled apart. She grinned and then moved on past him, keeping hold of his hand. Mark kicked the door shut behind him hastily before Maureen had pushed him onto the couch and settled, snuggling against him. Mark felt a thrill, as he always did. Roger remained speechless.

"So is this the famed Roger?" Maureen asked.

Roger stuttered and finally found a voice. "Um…I'm Roger."

Maureen giggled, a silky and gorgeous laugh that made Mark swoon. "Hello, Roger. I'm Maureen." She stood. "Where's your bathroom, Marky?"

"There." Mark pointed. Maureen waved with her fingers at him and sauntered into the bathroom.

"She's HOT!" Roger whispered loudly. "How the hell did you end up with that?"

Mark's grin threatened to exceed the space permitted by his actual face. "She's got a good mind too. No. Really," he said earnestly when Roger snorted.

Maureen came back out again, her wet hoodie in one hand. She now wore a figure-hugging shirt with a star on the front. Mark felt a thrill again. Roger, who seemed to have regained control of himself, said, "Hello again."

Maureen grinned. "Hello to you too." She settled on Mark's lap and planted a kiss on his lips. Mark returned it wholeheartedly.

Their kiss was interrupted by the phone's shrill ring; Mark broke from Maureen to grab the phone. "H'lo?"

"Helloooooo, Roger?" A slurred, female voice was on the other end. "You at Mark's place? You're not at home…" Roger, for a split second, appeared pained, but replaced the look quickly with a smirk as the girl continued with "and that made me saaaaad."

"Sorry, April, he's right here." He snorted as he handed the phone to Roger. Roger's face was smug as he said "Hello?" in his voice he reserved for girls to make them swoon.

"Girlfriend?" Maureen asked Mark.

"Nope, April's just this girl from school. She's probably drunk at some party. She's always drunk-dialing Roger," Mark replied. "Shh, it's entertaining."

"Soooo," April's voice came through the phone, loud enough for the two to hear. "I was thinking of you, Roger, 'cause it's a rainy night and you're all alone with Mark. Wanna come over? There's lots of fun…" Sounds of screaming girls came over the receiver. A new voice chimed in. "Oh Roger, April liiiiiikes you!"

April's voice squealed somewhere in the background. "Shut up, Josie!"

"I'll be right over. Can I bring a couple of people?"

"Sure, just come, you got it?"

"Be over as soon as I can." Roger hung up, smiling. "You guys wanna come? You don't have to drink anything, Mister Prude, before you ask."

Mark looked at Maureen. "Come on, Marky, we can have a little fun, right?" Her hand was on his arm. "I haven't been to a party in ages."

"I never said anything against it. Let's go." The couple stood up. Maureen twined her arm around Mark's.

Roger opened the door. "Your folks are okay with it, I assume."

"Whatever. They'll be at that anal business dinner till late, and it's only six thirty."

April lived within walking distance of the house. The downpour was easing up as the three started down the street. As they walked, the three remained mostly silent. Then Mark spoke.

"Roger?"

"Uh huh?"

"Can Maureen come with us?"

"Come with you?" Maureen asked. Roger looked puzzled.

"You know. When we get out of here."

"Oh. Right, of course."

Mark got a faraway, misty look in his eyes. "Think about it, guys. The city. Nobody knows us there. We can do what we want. I could make films for serious."

"There's Broadway to think about too," said Maureen, her eyes taking on a similar distant look.

"I could join a band and get real gigs," Roger said happily.

Mark sighed. "And only senior year to finish up. Then we're out. When college is over we're off to the city."

Maureen laughed.

"What?" said Roger.

"It's just…my mom always said I'd make a good starving artist."

"This is it," said Mark as they came to the door of April's house. The rain had stopped. Roger knocked on the door, but it was clear that above the music the knock could not be heard. He knocked again, louder, and the door swung open to reveal several people from Roger and Mark's school.

"ROGER!" a voice cried, and April came over, a beer in her hand. April, the school party girl, had highly permissive parents who left her alone in the house perhaps too frequently, Mark had noted. He'd lived down the road from her since she'd moved to Scarsdale when they were in eighth grade, at which point she'd already triple-pierced her ears, pierced her bellybutton, and procured several halter tops. He pointed his camera at April, her short, wavy red hair flaring a little at the end. Even when drunk, April was photogenic. "Smile."

"Smile this, asshole," April retorted, flipping the camera the bird. Mark shook his head and Roger snorted. "Come on in, retards."

April pulled Roger by the wrist rather roughly into a crowd of partying teens. The music was blasting. Maureen and Mark stayed close as they maneuvered through wildly dancing partygoers, beers in many hands.

"Maybe this was a mistake," Mark muttered.

Suddenly, April's friend Josie stood on a chair. "Y'all ready for a game?" she yelled. Cheers rang out around them. "Okay!" Josie called out. "Dare game! Everyone write your name down…" She looked around. "Who's got paper?"

Several moments of silence followed. People started booing.

Mark sighed. "I have some post-its, Josie." He handed them to her. He didn't know why he was feeding the flagrant display of whatever was about to be flagrantly displayed, but he wasn't sure what else there was to do. Josie accepted the Post-Its gingerly.

"Okay. Write your name down on one of these, and we'll dare you if we get your name."

Mark saw everyone, including Roger, move towards Josie to get a Post-It. He started to follow, but Maureen tugged his arm. "What?" he asked her.

"You don't want to play the dare game when there's been drinking."

Mark realized what he'd been about to do. "Thanks," he said hurriedly.

Maureen looked around. "You want to get out of here, or just me?"

"That'd be nice. I'm not a party animal."

"I figured." The two eased away from the milling crowd. Behind them they heard Josie's shout.

"First draw!" Silence. Then: "Roger!"

"Aw, shit!" came Roger's voice.

"Can I just see this?" Mark whispered in Maureen's ear. She nodded and grinned.

"I dare you to…" Josie's eyes took on a devilish gleam. "I dare you to French April!"

April squealed. Roger snorted. Then, inexplicably, he grinned, walked over to April, inclined his head, and planted his lips on hers.

Everyone shrieked and squealed. April in her state hadn't seen it coming. When it came, her eyes widened, before closing as she returned the kiss. The two backed up against a wall, still kissing. Roger seemed to be enjoying himself. So did April. Before long, the novelty of this development wore off for the other players and they drew the next name.

Mark and Maureen, sensing that now was a good time to get out of the way, walked down the hallway of April's house unnoticed. They opened a few doors before finding an old storage closet. "Let's sit in here," Maureen said.

"And…?"

"Talk."

"Sounds good." The two settled themselves side by side. Maureen took an old chair and propped the door shut. "Don't want anyone to come piss us off."

"So…"

"So?"

"Um…what do you want to talk about?"

"I dunno." Maureen looked out the tiny, dirty window of the storage room at the darkened sky. "New York. We'll be…starvingartists, I guess?"

"Yeah. Roger and I have been planning it since we were freshmen. I'm gonna produce films and he's gonna play in a band, maybe write his own stuff."

"Wow. And I can make the rounds, be an actress for real." She sighed. "I didn't make the school show this year."

"What? That's crazy, Maureen. Why?"

"My audition was awful. I had my song cold, but…" Her eyes were downcast. "I was so nervous."

"Nervous? You? You're the most confident person I know…"

"Not at school. People didn't like me in middle school. You got by on how pretty you were…"

"That was a problem for _you_?"

She grinned in spite of herself. "I had glasses, see. And I had a bit of a lisp, too. That went away, but…then I got to high school, people still thought I was a bit of a freak. Or a bitch, because I was, to some people. There was this one girl, Mona. She gave me hell freshman year. I shut up and let her. I was still depressed 'cause of Mom." She closed her eyes and continued, a little angrily. "Ran off with some guy she'd apparently been fucking for three years before.

"Beginning of sophomore year I told Mona to shove it up her ass. She never said anything to me again, but she told people I was a slut. They believed her."

"Maureen…" Mark held her and let her head fall onto his shoulder.

"I wasn't one of the popular ones. I did weird stuff sometimes. Like once I stole the head cheerleader's pom-poms and stood on a table in the caf screaming 'Cheerleading is sexist and demeaning!' I got detention and everyone snickered at me, and, well…that was the last month of last year, and I came back this year ready to be all confident because I had you." She tightened her grip around his waist. "But I had to stand up there and sing and Mona was there, and Cassandra the head cheerleader was there, and I was ready to sing but…" Mark was surprised to see a tear on her cheek, and he wiped it away. It was followed by another. "I just got so scared all of a sudden, the second he played the first note."

Mark hugged her. Maureen kissed his cheek, then his lips. He put his hand behind her neck, under her hair. Her hands were on his back. She snaked them forward onto his chest and toyed with his belt a little. It came undone; she pulled it off and cast it aside.

Mark stopped kissing her for a second. "Are you sure…"

"What, Marky?"

"Are you sure it should be here? There are people…"

"They'll be out there for hours. We don't see each other much, and our parents or Roger are always there. Why not here?"

Their eyes locked on each other's. In Maureen's eyes, Mark could see trust. In Mark's, Maureen could see devotion. The eyes met and saw love.

Maureen reached forward and began to slowly unbutton Mark's shirt. He let her, unsure of what to do. He uncertainly ran a hand around to her back and tugged her shirt, beginning to pull it upward. He wanted this, he knew—or did he? He was scared. He looked into Maureen's eyes again, and saw she was afraid too. They drew closer together, Mark's shirt now unbuttoned. Maureen stopped kissing him, just for a second, to smile.

Just then, the door rattled.

"Shit," Mark muttered.

"Shhh!" Maureen hissed. It was Roger on the other side of the door.

"Let me in! Cops!"

"Double shit." Mark hastily buttoned his shirt while Maureen opened the door. Roger crouched inside the little room.

"Why is your belt off…?" Roger's whisper trailed off and he looked suspiciously at Maureen, who grinned sheepishly. "Go Mark!" Roger whisper-cheered.

"Nothing happened, Roger," Mark retorted quietly.

"Oh, sure, whatever. Anyway, while you two were going over the moon, cops came and busted April. They're breathalyzing everyone. You two didn't have any beer, you're okay."

"Did you?" Mark said quietly.

"Didn't have time."

"Right. April." He had a thought. "Wait, was your tongue in her mouth?"

Roger looked away. "I'd be fine on the breathalyzer," he muttered.

"So…why are we in here?" Maureen asked. "It'd be better just to sit and get over with."

Roger replied, "We don't have to. April told me we can sneak out from this room." He knelt and moved aside a few bits of junk, revealing an enormous hole in the wall. "April made it. She says she has ways to sneak out all around the house."

"How'd that come up during the lip lock?"

"Um…she was offering to sneak away and make out. That's when the cops knocked."

"Shut up and let's get out!" Maureen hissed. She crawled through first. Mark, who fortunately had not worn a bulky sweater, followed, his skinny figure slipping through with little difficulty. Roger got stuck very briefly, but untangled himself soon. They hurried across the backyard and scaled the fence, running back to the sidewalk in the direction of Mark's house. When they arrived, panting, at the front of the tidy domicile, Roger looked from Mark to Maureen. "Guess I'd better go," he said, a definite note of reluctance present in his voice. He went inside to get his guitar. Mark sighed and faced Maureen.

"I guess I need to go too." Maureen didn't look at Mark. "Need to get back to Hicksville before curfew."

Mark tipped her chin up to face him. "Maureen…"

"It wasn't right, I know. I just…"

He kissed her. "Shh. I know. It's okay."

They embraced again, held each other tight for a long time. Dimly Mark was aware of Roger leaving with the Fender, but he didn't notice anything but Maureen. Finally they broke apart. Mark reluctantly watched Maureen walk slowly away from him, get into the aging beige Corolla, and drive off. He followed the old car with his eyes until it was out of sight, and then watched the spot where it had disappeared. Before long the rain started again, and he went inside to sit in front of the smoldering remains of the fire.

**Please review and let me know if I suck. The next chapter features Roger and will be highly dramatic, so stay tuned.**


	2. Part 2: Empty Life

**A/N: This chapter focuses on alcoholism and domestic abuse. You are forewarned. Be also forewarned that I have little experience with these issues and therefore am not the best portrayer of them, but I think I did okay. Please review constructively; no flames.**

**Part Two – Empty Life**

"Roger!" came the shout from upstairs. "You unplug yourself from that piece-of-shit guitar and get up here this instant!"

Roger shut his eyes, wishing it would just go away. He knew it wouldn't. "Coming, Dad." He hated the word. His father had never been a "dad" to him. There hadn't been the games of catch in the driveway, or the hugs, or the sports games watched together. Well, maybe there had been once, a very long time ago. Nowadays the alcohol was all his father cared about. Reluctantly, Roger put the guitar down and left his bat cave—as his mother so dubbed it. He'd chosen the basement room; he didn't mind that the air conditioning worked overtime down there. It was the best place to sit and sulk, or play music, or get away from his father. Slowly he ascended the staircase.

"You coming, boy?"

"I'm coming." Roger began to walk a little faster. He reached the first floor and went to the living room. He was surprised not to find his father on the couch there, although the TV was still on.

"Kitchen," he heard his father grunt.

Roger reached the kitchen and faced his father; smelly, overweight, and drunk again. Roger felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise in trepidation.

"Where's the beer, boy?"

"The beer?"

"The beer. I had another case of beer in here. I need it." He advanced toward Roger, who began, reflexively, to back away, but stopped himself and planted his feet.

"I don't know."

"Don't you lie to me, boy!" Roger's father put his hands roughly on his son's shoulders. "Did you take it? You and your hotshot rocker wannabe friends been guzzling my beer in the garage?"  
"No, Dad."

"Did you hide it then?" Roger sensed his father becoming more frantic. The hands on his shoulders were shaking him. "Where is it?"

At that moment, the door swung open. Roger winced, knowing what would come next.

Sure enough, a gentle voice issued from the doorstep. "Honey, I'm…" Her shoes _click_ed her into the kitchen with the shopping bags, and she saw her husband and son. "Home…" she whispered timidly.

Mr. Davis rounded on his wife. "You! Did you drink it?" Silence. "Answer me, woman!" He backed her into a corner. She squeaked in fear.

It was a familiar picture to Roger.

"She doesn't have your beer, Dad. Did you check the fridge in the garage? Sometimes it's there…"

"Shut up, you dirty son of a bitch."

"Jerome…"

"Shut UP!" Mr. Davis's hands had strayed to her neck. He pressed slightly.

Roger's mother, eyes wide with fear and pain and shiny with tears waiting to spill, nodded mutely, her delicate chin barely being able to bob up and down against the rough hands on her throat. Not taking his glaring, bloodshot eyes off his son, Mr. Davis retreated to the basement, threw the door open and clunked downstairs.

"Mom, this is getting worse. We have to get out of here." Roger ran to his mother, who was massaging her neck.

"Roger…" His mother looked pained. "We can't just leave…we'll have nothing."  
"I can stay at Mark's, they'd take you too. There are support lines. This is too much, we need help."

"Roger, honey…"

Roger pulled the plastic sandwich bag he'd found out of his pocket. "I found these," he whispered, thrusting the bag toward her. "Why didn't you tell me you were on these?"

The tears spilled down his mother's cheeks. She recognized the assortment of antidepressants and painkillers Roger was dangling before her. "Oh, honey. My doctor put me on those antidepressants a long time ago to help me…cope…"

"With me?"

"Oh, no, honey! No!" She wrapped her son in a tight hug. "With your father."

"And the painkillers?" Roger whispered, hating his father more and more.

"I didn't know…what else to do..."

Roger knew where the bruises his mother covered up with long sleeves and makeup came from.

"You have to stop," Roger said. "This has to stop." He shoved the antidepressant back into his pocket and threw the pills away. He took his mother by the hand.

Jerome Davis emerged from the basement a few minutes later, a beer in his hand. His wife and son were already gone. He downed the beer in minutes before staggering over to the couch and collapsing asleep upon it, the TV still flickering on.

* * *

Roger's one regret was his Fender. He'd abandoned it. But there was no way he could have gone into the basement and gotten it without his father hearing and getting suspicious. And he'd had to get his mother out. It couldn't wait. He should have done it a long time ago. 

Mrs. Davis knew where Roger was going. Where else would he go? She followed him, silent for awhile. When they were halfway to Mark's house, she finally spoke. "I'm proud of you, Roger."

"Mom…"

"I'm proud of you. I should have left years ago. I was staying for you."

"I'd been planning to leave since I was ten. I was staying for you."

Finally, they reached Mark's door. His mother's well-kept yard looked just the same by the dark of 6:00 p.m. EST as it did by light of day. Roger knocked.

It was Mrs. Cohen who answered. "Roger, honey! So nice to see you! And Nina too! It's been too long since we've had you two over!"

Mark's head appeared somewhere over his mother's shoulder. He looked bewildered at the sight of his friend, on his doorstep, with his mother. "Roger?"

Another voice cut in. "Judy, what's going on?"

"It's Nina Davis, honey, and Roger, Mark's friend."

"Oh." Mark's father sounded less than pleased.

"Mrs. Cohen…" Roger exhaled. "Is it okay if…we stay here tonight? There's been a…problem."

Mark had figured it out, Roger knew. Mark knew Roger's family was screwed up. From the look on Mrs. Cohen's face, it was clear that all the meetings at Starbucks with Roger's mother and some other friends had shed some light on their troubles too.

"Of course, honey. Come in. Roger, you can stay in Mark's room. Cindy?" Mrs. Cohen called.

"Yes?" replied the voice of Mark's sister, a pretty girl home from college for Thanksgiving weekend.

"Can Mrs. Davis sleep in your room tonight?"

"Sure, Mother."

"Thank you so much for this, Judy," Roger's mother said. "We won't be a burden."

"Of course, Nina. Anytime, you know that. Now come in; we're just about to eat."

* * *

It was late. Roger wasn't sure how late. His mother and Mrs. Cohen had made petty chat all evening; Mr. Cohen had been sullen; maybe he'd had another problem at work. 

If it had been any ordinary dinner that his mother had taken him to, hosted by the sunny Mrs. Cohen, Roger would have skulked in the background with Mark or flirted with Cindy a little (to no avail). Today Roger was silent, nodding or saying "No" or "Not really" or "Uh-huh" once in awhile when addressed. Mark had sensed that his friend didn't need to talk, didn't need to be alone, didn't need to be interrogated; Roger only needed Mark there. And, silently, Mark was, all evening. They had gone up to Mark's room, strewn about with old reels he was cutting together for his portfolio, without comment, quietly pulled out the mattress from under Mark's bed, shut out the light and lay down. Neither had slept.

Roger was worrying now. He'd finally done it. He and his mother were out of his father's oppressive hold. Here they were in the house of Mrs. Cohen, his mother's friend, as good a defense as any. Roger knew his mother had been beaten; he'd call an abuse hotline tomorrow, make sure they got a restraining order, whatever. His mother, he knew—he had to keep telling himself—was going to be all right. As for Roger, he'd survived in one piece, physically. He didn't know how much he'd be hurt emotionally; he'd grown up that way. It was the Fender that worried him now.

Since he'd first seen a Fender guitar when he was six, he'd known he'd wanted to learn how to play one. He'd always liked to compose his own music; snatches of melody to keep him company, to drown out the shouts of his father and the sobs of his mother, late at night.

He'd saved up money for three years. During the summer, he'd mowed lawns. During the fall, he'd raked leaves. During the winter, he'd shoveled walkways. During the spring, he'd gone without a school lunch for weeks. All the money went into the combination safe he'd gotten from his aunt for his eighth birthday. He counted his savings daily, until one day he had his total.

Without hesitation, he'd paid his four hundred and sixty-eight bucks to a bored teenager whose rock band had died an inglorious death, receiving in return a gorgeous, sleek Fender with an amplifier. The eleven-year-old Roger had played it, always unamplified, in the quiet safety of his room, or at his best friend Mark Cohen's house. It had been his pet, another friend, when it seemed that not even Mark could be his solace—the rarest of times. He'd called it his angel, or sometimes his Angel. He'd never known why; inexplicably, making Angel a proper noun had always seemed right. Now, when Roger needed solace most, his guitar was in the home of the man who'd ruined two lives he'd been entrusted with.

And Roger couldn't stand it anymore.

Slowly, determination flooding his body head to toe, he pushed the ratty pink comforter Mrs. Cohen had supplied him with off him, down to the floor. He sat up, awake as he'd ever been.

"What're you doing?" muttered a sleepy, tousled Mark, raising his blond head.

"I have to get my Fender."

"Roger…"

"Don't try and stop me or anything, Mark."

"Rog…" Mark looked pained. "I'm not gonna stop you."

"Good." Roger eased Mark's window open. It creaked a little.

"You're crazy, you know that?"

"I'm not crazy. I need my guitar, Mark. You know I do." Roger swung his legs out.

"I'll cover for you, in case."

Roger paused, and then flashed his friend a little smile. He only smiled around Mark. "Thanks. I know you will." He now stood on the awning under Mark's window. "And I'll stick my neck out for you someday."

After Roger had slid down from the awning and landed with a thump on the well-mowed, wet grass, Mark reluctantly pushed his own covers off. In his stripy pajamas, he tiptoed over to Roger's mattress and shoved a few pillows under the comforter, creating a Roger-sized lump. In case Roger wasn't back by around 6 a.m., when his mother would slip naïvely into the small room in attempt to rouse them, she'd not be put off, Mark reasoned. It was midnight now. He'd be back. But just in case.

* * *

Roger had gotten in easily. The front window blinds had been open, and he'd seen his father, sound asleep on the couch. Roger knew when his dad was asleep. 

He'd gone in through the back door he and his mother had used to escape. Oh so quietly he'd tiptoed down into the basement, the door left open carelessly. He grabbed his Fender, resisting the urge to hug it. Snatching up the amplifier and hastily winding the wires around it, he adjusted them around himself and tiptoed back up the stairs. No problem.

When he reached the top and had moved towards the door, he felt the amp slipping. _No…_he thought in desperation, but his hands were full with the guitar. It fell and made a horrible noise, smashing on the hardwood floor.

Roger tried to scoop up the pieces—it might possibly be able to be fixed?—but heard his father get up. He'd have slept off some of the beer, Roger realized, and be feeling like shit.

"Whozairr?" Mr. Davis's voice was slurred. "Lemme atcha! I'll fuckin' kill ya if you've been stealin'…." He then saw his son.  
"You!" he bellowed. He advanced on Roger. "Where's your mother, boy? How dare you leave? You two are mine, you belong to me, you hear? You had no…" he hit Roger, hard, squarely in the chest, thrusting him back towards the wall "…right…" in the nose, "to leave this house!" As Roger clapped a hand to his profusely bleeding nose, the first punch having knocked the wind out of him, Mr. Davis seized the guitar and threw it against the wall behind his son with all his might.

It happened so fast, Roger was only dimly aware he'd been hit. When the Fender hit the wall and fell, in several pieces and twisted beyond imaginable salvage, however, Roger felt a searing, indescribable pain. Hate welled up within him. He kneed his father in the groin, satisfied to hear him scream. The two tussled, but Roger, who was sober and in considerably better shape, got the upper hand. He grabbed Mr. Davis by the shirt collar and rammed his head to the floor. He hadn't killed him, Roger knew, but he was knocked out.

_Police,_ he thought. He got himself, somehow, to the phone and dialed 911. When he'd gotten through, he choked "A man's been hurting me and my mother. He's unconscious. I'm bleeding." That was all he could say. He gasped out the address, spit his own blood onto the tiled floor, and collapsed.

* * *

It was 3 a.m. Roger ran across the Scarsdale streets, hating his little suburb more by the second. He passed a diner, with a happy little mascot announcing a special sitting out front, and hated it. He ran past a row of neat houses, and hated every one. He really hated the little dog visible from a window. Anything cute or fluffy was, at that moment, loathsome to him. 

Police officers had come. His father was in custody for evident abuse of a minor. They'd called his mother at the Cohens, and she'd bravely confirmed that her husband had been abusing her for ten years, since he'd started to develop serious alcoholism. The police officer had told her that Mr. Davis would face time in prison, and that she and Roger would remain safe. Two hours, a support hotline, and a haze of epithets from Mr. Davis saw Roger back at the Cohens', but he couldn't stay. He'd wanted to say something to Mark, knew Mark would want to talk to him. But Roger didn't feel like being a documentary at that moment.

What he didn't really want to admit, but what the part of his brain he'd come to call "the Mark part" was nagging him to face, was that he was on guitar withdrawal. It was his security blanket and his drug, both at once. It represented so much to him: the devotion it had taken to wait for it, the dedication it had taken to learn to play it, sitting up, feverish, late at night and plucking it quietly, without the amp. It represented Mark, in a way; the times Mark had teased him for how much he loved that guitar, the hours that the two friends had spent making corny music videos, falling about laughing when they actually saw them later. All Roger had in life was his best friend, Mark, and his angel, the Fender. And now one was gone.

Mark had once pointed out—Mark was always pointing things out—that Roger was addicted to addiction. He'd been addicted to the guitar from the first time he'd seen one. He'd saved money, hoping so hard. He'd finally gotten it, and regarded it as the best day of his life. Every second he'd had with the guitar was like a new epiphany, it had seemed at first. Then it had evolved into pure obsession.

Roger thought of it this way. What he felt for his mother was love. What he felt for Mark was that he was his complement; that they shared the strongest bond two people could have. What he'd felt for the Fender had been passion, only that.

Unbidden, the image of a slim girl with brilliant red hair, streaked with black and pink, various earrings lining her delicate ears, sprang to his mind. Roger pushed it back. He wasn't sure how he felt about April. He'd mocked her with Mark as a slut so many times…and yet…

He stopped running. This was insane. Now he was thinking about the Fender _and_ April. The party that day, even if she'd remembered none of it, had felt so good, and he couldn't even tell why.

Maybe there were other ways to get highs, without the guitar.

The guitar was gone and he had to accept it. He'd deal with April later. At that moment he needed to go back to Mark's and get some rest.

_I got loaded with so much emotional baggage today I'm a fucking airport,_ he thought, before heading back past the rows of neat Scarsdale houses.


	3. Part 3: Below 14th Street

**A/N: Angel and Mimi are great. But it has come to my attention that they don't make it into enough fics. There are too many post-Rents for Angel to exist, and so many Mark/Rogers or Anyone Else/Rogers in which Mimi has been killed off to make room for the other lover. And too many pre-Rents starring Mark and Roger for them to have met Angel or Mimi. So, touché, I am so mad about all the M/R fics that I have put Mimi and Angel into my little story. (They're much younger than the others. Putting that out there so it doesn't come as a shock.) And it'll be shorter.

* * *

****Part 3—Below 14th Street**

Mimi clutched her bag to her as they swung the creaky door open. She shivered; it was so cold in the little room that stood before her.

She looked around. It was bare of anything, of course; that would change when the things they had came in. The dirty window was cracked in more than one place and covered in duct tape. Cardboard was taped over a corner of the floor; upon closer inspection it proved to cover a missing bit of the floorboard. The room in general gave off an air of exhaustion, as though it just wanted to be bulldozed and put out of its misery.

Mimi dropped her patchwork backpack, which she'd made last year and which held everything it could, beside her as she sank into a corner. She put her head back against the wall.

"Chica…" Her mother came to stand by her. "It won't be so bad. When our things are here, it'll be better. And there'll be heat and everything before it is truly cold."

"It's cold now, Mama." Mimi replied stonily.

"Mimi. This…" she gestured around her, "is only temporary, you know that. Once my paycheck comes in we'll have better things, and then when your father gets his papers in…"

"That's just it, Mama. We're Americans. Why did Papi have to go to Mexico?"

"Chica, you know he came here illegally. My father is American and I already had citizenship, and you were born here. We don't have Mexican citizenship and we couldn't go with Papi when _la migra_ told him he had to leave."

"Well, it isn't fair."

"I know, Mimi chica. _Pero eres americana."_

"Mama, we're American. We speak English, don't we?"

"Mimi!"

"I need to go."

"_Adonde vas?_"

"I'm going to go think."

Mimi snatched up her bag again, swallowed tears and ran out of the little apartment building.

By the time she'd gotten far enough away to stop running, she took a good look around her. People sat out on the streets, all their possessions around them, only pigeons for company. She put a strand of brown curls into her mouth, an old habit; she chewed her hair when nervous. She wondered where her father was now. He'd had a reasonablygood job—it paid the bills, at least—until U.S. Immigration had sniffed him out. Unable to get proof of how hard he'd worked since coming to New York so long ago, he'd had to go back until he could try and get papers through, leaving his wife and thirteen-year-old daughter behind. That had been five months ago. Mimi's mother had been unable to pay their old bills with her job waiting tables. She'd be taking on extra shifts, and now the lease on their apartment was up. They now lived in this dismal one in the East Village. Temporarily, Mimi kept telling herself.

"Hey, look, it's a little girl." Mimi looked up to see two men. Both were leering at her. Instinctively she backed away.

"Where you goin', little girl?" asked the second man. They began to move toward her, backing her against the wall of a dingy building. Mimi's eyes darted about, looking for a way to get out, but she was cornered.

"We're not gonna hurt ya," said the man who'd spoken first. "If you turn out to be sweet as you look."

"Where you off to in such a hurry?"

Terrified, Mimi struggled to choke out a lie."Meeting my boyfriend."

"Oh…ho! Now we're scared!" The two made faces at each other, then turned back to leer at her. "Is he a big, strong boy?" He reached toward an area that shouldn't be touched by strange men. Mimi tried to swerve away, tried to struggle…

"Excuse me, sirs, is there a problem?"

The men turned to look at the source of the new voice. Mimi looked too, and saw a boy, about her age or a little older. He appeared to be of Latino descent. Slightly built and clad in slightly oversized clothes, he stood only an inch or two taller than Mimi herself. He held what appeared to be a tube of lip gloss tightly in his hand, almost as though he were hiding it, and spoke to the men with no apparent qualms.

"This the boyfriend, girly?" the men asked. Mimi was too scared to speak, but didn't need to.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am," said the boy.

The men laughed uproariously. The one not securing Mimi to the wall rounded on the boy, shoving his bony shoulders roughly and causing him to stumble. "Don't screw with me, boy."

Calm expression still on his face, the boy regained himself and responded, looking the man straight in the eye, "Then don't you go and screw with her."

Mimi blinked and missed it, but next thing she knew there was a terrible bellow of pain. The man who'd confronted this strange boy was writhing in the street, and Mimi's captor had released her to shout "Wha'd he do?"

"Kicked my balls!" gasped the other man. Mimi stared, awed, at the boy, now smiling.

"Oh no you fucking did not!" shouted the unharmed man, rounding on the boy. He was greeted with that smile.

"Oh, but I did. And if you don't want any trouble, you really ought to leave her alone."

The man looked derisively at the boy, as though he might hit him anyway. Instead he helped his friend up and said "C'mon. Even those tits ain't worth it."

Only when they were long out of sight was Mimi able to pull herself off the wall and run up to her rescuer, who stood staring in the direction they'd left, still smiling slightly.

"Thanks," she said shakily.

"Oh, honey, of course. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?"

"No, thanks to you."

"I'm telling you, it wasn't a problem. I'm Angel."

"Angel? Your parents named you Angel?"

"Well, it's not my real name. My real name's Dumott. Dumott Schunard." He made a face; Mimi could see why. "But please call me Angel."

"I'm Mimi. Mimi Marquez. I just moved here."

"Here, to East Village?" Mimi nodded. "From where?"

Mimi told him about her father being deported and her mother not being able to pay for their old apartment as the two began to walk together.

"Oh, I see. Well, I've lived in the East Village all my life. And it's really not as bad as those gentlemen made it seem. Just don't walk alone anymore, okay?" He stopped to look at her. "My, you are a young little thing, aren't you? How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Really?"

"Well…thirteen, but fourteen in a couple of months."

"Ah. I'll be fifteen next month."

"Happy early birthday."

"Thanks. Go to school?"

"Yeah, my mom's gonna try and keep me where I went before, but it'll be some walk. Where do you go?" They were walking again.

"I had to drop out, take care of my mama. She's sick." Angel stopped suddenly. "What time is it?"

"It's about four…"

"Oh! I need to go, she needs her medicine…Mimi, dear, it was lovely to meet you. We'll see each other again, soon." He kissed her forehead and sprinted away.

Mimi watched him go. She had the distinct impression she'd made a friend. Despite the scare she'd had, life here might not be so bad if there were more like Angel around.

_Just don't walk alone again,_ she resolved, as she reached the front door of her new apartment building. _Never walk alone._ It was time to apologize to her mother, and start a new chapter of her life here.

* * *

**I meant it when I said short. Angel's will hopefully be longer. More on the way; next will be either Maureen or Collins. Reviewand let me know which one you want.**


	4. Part 4: Tiger in a Cage

**A/N: Well, it looks like the votes were for Maureen, so that's who we'll be hearing about. Remember for this chapter, those of you who are only dimly familiar with the show but have seen the movie, that this fic is musicalverse, and anyone who complains about the absence of Maureen's mother with "But she was in the movie!" will be disowned. Note: The Offended Virgin Stare is copyright my mother sometime in the 70s and is being used with permission. All rights reserved for me.

* * *

****Part 4: Tiger in a Cage**

Maureen leaned over and peered at herself in the mirror, flipping open the little eyeshadow case. With her thumb and forefinger she picked up the tiny brush and rubbed it in a square of makeup. She closed one eye and rubbed the brush across the lid, snapping the eye open again. She followed suit with the other eye.

_I look like a whore,_ she decided, upon evaluating her appearance. She shrugged and wet her fingers to wipe it off. When it proved to be virtually indestructible, she shrugged and figured it would come off in the shower.

Before she left the little bathroom, she looked in the mirror again. Her own pale face stared back, framed by a mess of brown curls. Hazel eyes focused on the image on the other side of the mirror. Her lips pouted a little, dark pink without the aid of lipgloss.

"You don't look half bad," she said to her reflection—or maybe it was her reflection who spoke to her. She fiddled with her hair a little before shutting off the light switch in the cubicle-sized bathroom and going downstairs.

"Hi, Daddy," she said. Her father was reading the paper in his favorite easy chair. He moved his paper down and smiled. "Hello, Reeney."

"Hello." She moved over to kiss him on the top of his salt-pepper head.

"Did you have fun with your friend today?" He removed his glasses and put them in his shirt pocket.

"Yes, thanks, Daddy, I did." Her "friend" was Mark, whom her father approved of, but whom he refused to refer to, for whatever reason, as her boyfriend. Maybe it was because Maureen didn't exactly emphasize the fact that he was her boyfriend, despite the fact that they'd nearly had sex in the closet of a drunken girl Maureen had never met. It wasn't the kind of thing a seventeen-year-old girl discusses with her father.

"What time is it, Reeney?" Reeney was a family nickname; anyone else who attempted to use it would be met with the Offended Virgin Stare, copyright Maureen Johnson.

"It's about six."

"Oh, you got back early."

"Well, he had to go to a college forum thing." She smiled. Mark had been so excited, preparing the films for his portfolio in hopes to show it off.

"That's nice." Mr. Johnson pulled his glasses out of his pocket again, unfolded them and put them back on. Maureen turned to go back upstairs.

"Oh, Reeney?" her father called quietly after her.

"Yeah?"

"You haven't, um…" He paused. "You haven't heard from…your mother lately, have you?"

Maureen froze. This was an odd question. Her mother had left her father the summer before Maureen had started high school to be with her lover, a coworker she'd been having an affair with for three years. Maureen had come home early on the last day of eighth grade (she'd skipped out on the Farewell Ceremony, as she'd hated her middle school) and walked in on them. Her mother had promised Maureen two weeks later that she'd dumped her boyfriend, but the following month she'd announced to her husband that she was leaving. She hadn't called after that until Maureen's sixteenth birthday. Maureen had been cold throughout the five-minute you're-a-beautiful-young-woman-now speech, the fifteen-minute Ted-and-I-are-so-happy-but-we-miss-you-so-much speech, and the two-minute I'm-so-sorry-I-haven't-been-involved-in-your-life speech. It had ended in her mother promising to call more often, and Maureen simply hanging up. Her mother never called back.

"No, Daddy, I haven't."

"Oh." Her father sighed. "Well, if she ever calls, tell me, okay?"

"Of course…" Maureen went back up to her room and collapsed on her bed, facing her ceiling. It had silver stars hanging from it, that she'd put up when she was ten. Her bed had purple cheetah-print sheets with a comfortable purple comforter, accessorized with several pillows of various fluffinesses and a stuffed tiger she'd had since she was born. A beaded lamp cast off a glow enough to light the room dimly. It stood on a desk also home to her beloved cassette player and a fuzzy purple telephone. It wasn't technically supposed to be fuzzy; Maureen had glued the fuzz onto it herself. Her wall was coated with programs from plays she'd been in, posters of singers she idolized, photos of her and Mark that he'd developed and given to her. Her room was her life in a box.

The fuzzy phone rang; her own line had been her seventeenth birthday present. Maureen reached over to pick it up. "Hello?"

"Mo?"

Maureen was stunned for a moment. Only one person called her Mo. "Rache?"

"Oh my God, how _are_ you?"

"I'm…I'm doing well. How are you?"

"Why haven't we talked in forever?"

Maureen didn't have much to say to that. Rachel had been her best (and only) real friend in elementary and middle school, but when high school had hit she'd suddenly lost interest. She'd streaked her blond hair, begun to wear "rebellious" clothing. They'd stayed friends, Maureen supposed, but the magic of their elementary school friendship was gone. Maureen had soon lost interest in maintaining her friendship with Rachel as well. Sure, Maureen could feel like a rebel without a cause herself--or too many causes--but she didn't want to have to advertise through her clothes.

And now her friend had called her back, after all but ignoring her for three years.

"I dunno. I guessed we'd gone our separate ways."

"Well, let's unseparate our ways then. Shopping. Tomorrow. The Flint."

"Sure, Rache, I'll be there…"

"Good." Her old friend paused. "It's nice to talk to you again, Mo."

The line went dead.

Maureen sat on her bed and stared at her fuzzy phone for a minute. Rache had called. That was so bizarre. _Well, I've needed an excuse to go shopping, _Maureen thought, before falling back on her cheetah sheets again.

* * *

The Flint was_the_ shopping mall Hicksville teenagers went to,a good drive away. Maureen's beloved, ancient beige Toyota Corolla squeaked along the road and pulled into the parking garage. She got out of the car carefully and ran to the nearest entrance to the mall, where she found Rachel waiting, blond hair in six different colors, and wearing an outfit that would have given Maureen's father a heart attack.

"Mo!" Rachel swept her old friend up in a tight hug. "C'mon, let's go."

They entered the shopping mall. Maureen was not normally a fan of shopping malls, preferring to go to smaller stores and get things cheaper, or recycle secondhand clothes and make her own. Her latest project was a pair of jeans that had frayed in a few places, onto which she was sewing yellow stars cut from a truly awful shirt she'd gotten for twenty-five cents at a discount secondhand store. Today, however, she had some extra money from her doting grandmother, who sent her money randomly, and the opportunity to get to know Rachel again.

"So, where do you wanna go first?" Rachel asked as they entered the Flint.

"I dunno, Rache, I don't come here much," Maureen responded, hoping Rachel would take the hint.

"Well, then, I'll help you. C'mon, follow me." She led around the mall to a dimly lit store with painfully awful music screeching out from it, red and black lights shining everywhere and clothes Maureen didn't even want to touch hanging from the racks.

"I don't think so, Rache."

"Mo!" Rache looked exasperated. "Why not?"

"You know what I like."

"I do, Mo. But I'm trying to get you to branch out."

"Well, can we branch out somewhere else?"

Rachel looked like she was about to push her one-time friend into the store anyway. Instead she just said, "Okay, sure. We'll walk, you find something you like."

"Okay…"

The girls walked largely in silence. Maureen kept her eyes on the stores, passing nothing that caught her interest. Rachel stopped occasionally to look in a window, but then moved to catch up with her.

Before long Maureen spoke. "What happened to…Nick, right? You two still together?"

"Oh, yeah, him. He left me for this girl Isabel."

"Are you serious? Bastard."

"Whatever. I'm after this guy Mike now. So, how about you? You going out with anyone?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Ooh, Maureen! Who?"

"His name is Mark."

"Mark…who?"

"He doesn't live here. He lives down in Scarsdale."

"Then how do you know him?"

"He was visiting his great-aunt or something up here and needed coffee. I was in caffeine frenzy and bumped into him at the store, and he was adorable. So I flirted a little, and he flirted a lot, really badly, and then he asked for my number, and then he asked me out, and then we went out, and then we made out, and then we started calling every day and visiting most weekends and whenever we could do an afternoon."

"What's he look like?"

"Um…" Maureen fished out her wallet, a denim folding wallet she'd decorated with pieces of ribbon and scraps of cloth, and pulled out her favorite picture of them. They were sitting outside his house, in front of a bush, arms around each other. Mark was kissing the side of her head, and she was laughing. It was one of a set of stills they'd taken. Mark had set his camera on self-timer and put it on his video camera's tripod. They'd all turned out well; one had even gone in his portfolio. This one was Maureen's favorite.

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "You went with a geek. Does he do your homework?"

"Rache!"

"Sorry. He's adorable, if that makes it better."

"It does, thanks…"

"So you've been dating for how long?"  
"Our five-month anniversary is next week."

"Oooh, quite the little monogamist, aren't you?"

"Rache."

"Sorry…"

"Oh!" Maureen stopped in front of a window belonging to a little store tucked away in a corner. She didn't see much, but she adored the outfit on a mannequin. Black jeans and a white top, the sleeves tapering out and with a dusting of silver shimmer around the V-cut neckline. "Rache…stop and let me try that on, please."

It was a little too…monochromatic for Maureen's usual outfit. Still, she put it on, because she'd actually seen something in a mall she liked. She looked in the mirror…not so bad. Maybe if she did something with her hair…She grabbed a chunk of her hair in back and pouted her lips a little, posing…

"Mo! Get that cute ass out here!"

"Coming, Rache." Maureen left the little dressing room and faced her waiting friend. She did a little turn.

"Nice, Mo. Nice. I like."

"I think I'm getting this."

"Damn straight you are. And let's find some other stuff."

They looked around the store, which was tucked away in a corner of the mall where few would see it. Maureen was glad she had; she found a pile of clothes, most of them more colorful than the first thing she'd seen, and bought them all relatively inexpensively. Rache critiqued them all, liking some more than others, but whatever Maureen liked she bought.

"It was nice spending time with you again, Rache," Maureen said as they left the store, laden down with bags.

"You too, Mo." With difficulty because of the bags, they hugged.

"We need to do this again sometime, for you."

"Nah, I got plenty of clothes," Rache laughed.

"Well, okay, call me sometime then. It isn't fair we don't know each other anymore."

* * *

Maureen spent hours in front of her bathroom mirror that night, modeling outfit after outfit. She liked them, she admitted. She didn't need to make everything, did she? Once in awhile she could afford to splurge.

The phone rang. Maureen ran out of the bathroom to pick it up, the fuzz on her phone tickling her hand. "Hello?"

"Maureen…hi."

"Mark!" She smiled and sat on her bed, holding one of her new shirts. "How'd the college thing go?"

"Great, there was this guy Steve who said I had some really great stuff. I'm looking at Brown, I could go to a great film program there."

"That's really great, Mark."

"So. What'd you do today?"

"I went shopping with an old friend."

"Atone of those other artsy stores?"

"No, we went to the mall…"

"Ah, I feel the earth shift..."

"Marky!"

"Sorry. What'd you buy?"

"A load of stuff."

"That you're going to mutilate and make into something completely weird, yet absolutely gorgeous."

"No, actually, I think I'm going to leave them."

"Branching out?"  
"That's what Rache said…"

"Your friend?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

"Anyway."

They were silent for a moment.

"When can I see you again, Maureen?"

Maureen thought. "Wednesday. Ms. Snow canceled voice lessons this week."

"You come here, or I go there?"

"I'll go over there. I'm bored of Hicksville."

"You try living here and you won't be so hot on Scarsdale."

"Guess so."

"Maureen?"

"Mm?"

"I love you."

Maureen was silent. She couldn't breathe. Her cheetah bedding was about to swallow her, and the air was pushing down around her, and it was warm, very warm. Her choked throat opened again. "I love you too, Mark."

* * *

**Awwww. Gotta love Mark and Maureen. Another poll: Collins or April next?**


	5. Part 5: Actual Reality

**A/N: First order of business: I changed my name to Musetta Lulu. If you aren't into La Boheme, GET INTO LA BOHEME. Ahem, moving on. Because I've dumped, and will continue to dump, craploads of drama on my readers' and Jon Larson's poor little characters' heads, I will attempt to make this, Collins' chapter, a lot lighter. You probably won't see much of Collins as this is largely a drama fic, but enjoy him while he's here. And I tossed in Benny for good measure; he won't show up again either if Collins doesn't, which it's likely he won't. Thanks so much for all the kind reviews I've received so far. Keep reading. Also, may I please dedicate this chapter to the real Mr. Elstein, who hopefully does not read RENT fanfic and, if he does, hopefully doesn't read mine, because your U.S. History teacher reading your fanfic would be embarrassing, particularly this one, as I have borrowed his name and a good bit of his capitalism lecture to further my plot. Collins wasn't even going to be in here until I heard this lecture and thought of Collins. So, if you are reading this, Mr. Elstein, I don't mean to offend you at all, and yes, this is why I was laughing through your capitalism lecture. It wasn't because you look hilarious when you scream, even though you do. May I also dedicate this chapter to Mr. Beaty, former vice principal of my old middle school, who died this week of cancer, and to the sixth grade math teacher Mr. Bollinger who died a couple of years ago of HIV, which they only just bothered to tell us.

* * *

****Part 5—Actual Reality**

Tom Collins sat in the small desk, not paying attention at all. U.S. History was, after all, the most useless class devised by the human mind, which was saying a lot. He glanced up at the clock; the period would end in ten minutes. Ten minutes couldn't crawl any slower, as far as he was concerned.

Collins missed his European and world history classes of freshman and sophomore year. So much philosophy so far ahead of its time. Juniors and seniors, such as Collins, had to take U.S. History, full of boring wars and over-structured governments.

"Now, here we are at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution," said Mr. Elstein, making a sweeping gesture with his hands. He was a tiny, grayed man bearing an unfortunate resemblance to a chimpanzee with a Hitler mustache. He brandished a small wooden gavel, for no apparent reason. "We've got our market economy. We've found our feet from the Civil War. Here's the creation of a true democracy. And what does democracy go hand in hand with?" Mr. Elstein paused for dramatic effect.

_This'll be good, _thought Collins.

"CAPITALISM!" Elstein threw his arms in the air with this word. "Democracy is perfect for capitalism. We didn't want" he thrust his arm threateningly at half his bored class "authoritarianism. We didn't want" he thrust his arm again "communism. We didn't want" arm thrust "socialism, or anarchy…they were bull's crap…"

"'Ey," said Collins.

"Oh, crap," muttered a boy in the corner. "Here we go."

"What was that, Tom?"

"Capitalism isn't utopia either."

"Well, for purposes of this discussion, Mr. Collins…"

"Hey, listen to me, man! Y'all can keep your dictators and your presidents and your prime ministers and all. They're all gonna be the same thing no matter what. You want your real freedoms? Anarchy. That's the actual reality of it."

He had stood up.

"Uh, that's quite enough, Mr. Collins!" barked Mr. Elstein.

"No it's not," said Collins pleasantly, still standing.

"Thomas Collins, sit down or you are out of line!"

"There shouldn't be a line is what I'm saying…"

"Detention, Collins!" roared the small man, banging his little gavel on a half-asleep girl's desk, waking her up with a shriek.

"Whatever, man. I'm going to Penn State early decision."

"It does not behoove you…"

"Whatever, man," said Collins.

The bell rang.

"Finally." He left the room. A boy named Arnold elbowed him on the way out.

"Sorry, Arnold, I'm afraid you need to watch yourself," said Collins, massaging his arm.

Arnold leered. "Nobody's listening to you, you know."

"I'm sorry?" He followed the boy into the hallway.

"Just shut up about fucking anarchy. Nobody cares."

"I am sorry for them."

"Fucking faggot."

"Excuse me?"

"You. Fucking. Faggot."

"So?" Collins had been out of the closet for two years at this point.

"Get your faggot ass the hell away from me."

"Faggot ass, eh?" Collins slapped the other boy's rear end, hard. "That is some faggot ass, right there." He walked away, smiling and whistling.

"Oh, you fucking did not!" Arnold ran up and jumped Collins from behind, knocking him to the ground and dragging him to an alcove. Grabbing the back of Collins's black knit beanie, he rammed the other boy's head into the ground, and Collins could feel his tooth punch into his lip.

_Party's not over yet,_ he thought. Abruptly he stood up, knocking Arnold, who had more arm strength but was shorter than Collins, on his back, and turned and stepped on him. Through his own blood he spit, spilling some on the other boy's white sneakers, "This kind of thing could get you expelled."

He turned and left, knowing Arnold wouldn't be followed. With his dark red shirt he wiped some blood off his face. _Why am I always the one who gets beat up? _he thought.

He left the school building and skipped out to his bus. Sitting in his usual two-person seat, he pulled out a book (_The New Study of Evolutionary Psychology_) and became immersed in it. He didn't look up when he heard a voice.

"Hey, man, can I sit here?"

Realizing the boy was talking to him, he looked up. "Oh, okay, sure." He moved his bulky backpack onto his lap to make room for the other boy to sit. "Benjamin, right?"

"Benny, please."

"Right. Benny. You new this year?"

"Yeah."

The two sat in silence for a few minutes. Collins returned to _Evolutionary Psychology _before he remembered.

"I'm Tom Collins. You can just use the surname."

"Collins. Cool."

"So what do you think of Johnson High so far?"

"Same as any other high school, I guess."  
"You move a lot?"

"A bit. This is my third school."

"Cool."

Pause.

"Whatcha reading?"

Collins showed him the book cover.

"Evolutionary psychology, huh? Thinking of majoring in psych?"

"Philosophy, I hope."

"Cool. Where do you want to go?"

"Penn State, early decision."

"Good school. I'm looking at Brown."

"What do you want to go into?"

"Not sure yet. I kinda want to be a business guy, run my own stuff."

"Sounds cool," Collins said dubiously.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah. I, uh, I just got detention with Elstein tomorrow."

"Man, that sucks."

"Yeah." Silence.

"Well, this is my stop, I gotta go," said Benny, picking up his backpack. "See you later, man."

"See you." Collins returned to the book.

* * *

He knew the drill. The following day he faced the prisonlike front door of the Social Studies Department office. He sighed and pushed the door open. 

"Yes?" Mr. Forman, a disgruntled Government teacher with a special loathing for anarchists (and word of Collins had inevitably spread through the Social Studies Department) looked up from the table at which he was grading a stack of papers.

"Where could I find Mr. Elstein?" Collins asked politely. Mr. Forman's reply, as he looked back at his papers, came in the form of a forefinger pointed at the door of the History Office. Collins knocked before he entered.

Mr. Elstein sat in front of a desk that ate up half the cubicle-sized office, and assumed an aloof air. "I need you to do some dirty work, I'm afraid. Hole punch some handouts"—he handed a large stack of papers to his captive—"then staple every two together. A boring detention, I know, but you need something unexciting to do. Besides, you did get in early decision…" He gave Collins a smile that indicated he considered himself the greatest evil genius ever to live. "An hour and a half or until you finish."

Grudgingly, Collins took the papers and grabbed the hole puncher. He smiled to see that it was the same puncher he'd once drawn an anarchy symbol on with a permanent pen. Needless to say, it was still there. He set to work punching, thinking that for every punch, anarchy was making its mark a little bit more.

Half an hour passed before the knock came. Collins had hole punched the papers and had stapled about half. Elstein, who had been grading papers as Collins worked, said "Come in."

"Hey." Collins looked up and was surprised to see Benny, the boy he'd met on the bus the previous day. He flashed a smile but said nothing.

"Uh, I need a Thomas Collins, says here that his mom needs him…"

"Mr. Collins is serving detention."

"Yeah, man, but could he finish up tomorrow? His mom needs him." He handed Elstein a note. The teacher held it and said "Fine then. Thomas, you don't need to bother about coming back, you've done fine. Keep your mouth shut once in awhile in class when I tell you to."

"Yes, sir." Collins followed Benny out of the room. When they had rounded a corner, Benny slapped his own knee and chortled.

"What?" asked Collins.

"Your mom didn't call for you. I faked the note."

"Wha…"

"Got you out of detention, didn't I?"

"You…" spluttered Collins, before laughing with Benny. "Wow, man, thanks."

"How'd ya piss him off?"

"Anarchy."

"What?"

"I'm anarchist, and I shot down all his capitalism shit. Or I tried to, but then he went all dictator on me."

"Ah."

"So, business, eh?"

"I actually don't know. I should be figuring something out, but…gah, I'm just so confused."

"Aren't we all."

* * *

**Next: April. **


	6. Part 6: You're Staring Again

**Part 6—You're Staring Again**

It was the first day of December, a Monday. April Taylor came to school feeling sicker than she ever had. On top of the previous night's three bottles of beer, four trips to vomit in the toilet, and screaming fight with her parents, it was a Monday.

Her parents had been incredibly tolerant of her parties on weekends when they weren't around, until they remembered they weren't the greatest about locking up their beers, and neither were her friends' parents. Several parents had called about the breathalyzer test results the night after she'd thrown the one that got crashed by the cops, and the conflagration that ensued had been intense. However, her parents were relatively lenient; all she had to do was stop throwing parties, and she was grounded. Yesterday, however, they'd caught her drinking again, and at the encouragement of April's do-gooder school counselor threw the beer away and tried to give her a Stern Lecture. April had lost it and it had escalated into a roaring, screaming fit, ending in the girl throwing up at her mother's feet. Now April was at school, and sure to have the most hellish day of her life.

No, wait, she wasn't. Roger Davis had rounded the corner. The one, the only, Roger Davis.

April had never been sure why he didn't have more friends; he was hot, he played guitar and sang. He should have fucking _groupies,_ for God's sake. She'd asked him a few times to sit with her group, but he'd always said no, he preferred to sit with Mark. Then he would look at her—pityingly? Disgustedly? April could never figure out what those eyes were telling her. And he had such amazing eyes. Once in awhile he would look up from what he was doing, those eyes lifting into the floppy bits of hair that fell in that incredibly sexy way and giving him a soulful look that made April want to rip his pants off right there…_Whoa, April. Calm down. You are too sick to be horny._

What made April feel the worst were the times when she found herself jealous of Mark. He was such a sweet, nerdy little guy. Their mothers became friends after the Taylors moved to Scarsdale, so April had been fobbed off on the Cohens' parties many times. Mark always seemed as bored by his mother's extravagant suburban get-togethers as April was, so the two talked a lot, and April was always surprised by how nice he was. He and Roger were different as night and day, not that Roger wasn't a nice guy—only in a different way. But she could definitely see how they had sparked such an intense friendship. Sometimes when she saw them squatting in the hallway together at lunch as she walked past for the third time in hopes Roger would see her, she couldn't help feeling that prickling sense of jealousy. She'd wished to be Mark, whose only friend was Roger, but who, unlike April, who had so many friends, had a friend who was true. And the fact that it was Roger Davis didn't hurt.

So here she was, staring at Roger as usual. The boy could look hot in a gray hoodie sweatshirt. Was there anything he _couldn't_ look hot in? April looked like shit; she hadn't had time to put her makeup on that morning, and her eyes were red and puffy.

_Oh God._ Roger had opened his mouth. He was going to talk to her.

"Um, hey, April." He sounded uncertain.

"Hi, Roger," April said as pleasantly as she could manage.

"Are you…okay?"

"Yeah, I…I'm good."

"Listen…" He did a small double take. "I've gotta talk to you. Can I meet you sometime?"

"At your house?" April was nonplussed.

Roger looked indescribably painful for a second, but then shook his head and regained control of himself. "Well, I'm technically staying with Mark for now. Could you meet me after school outside the building? We can walk to the park or something."

"Sure…I guess I could do that…"

"Okay…um…good." Roger took a step back, then turned and left.

_What. The fuck. Just happened to me?_ thought April. Roger, the guy she'd liked since they were sophomores, had just asked her to go to the park and "talk" about something. It could only be described as weird. She watched his retreating, hot-gray-hooded-sweatshirt-clothed back, and smiled a tiny bit.

Then she ducked into the girls' bathroom to throw up again.

* * *

Having refrained from throwing up for the rest of the day, April stood outside the school building, shivering a little in the early December cold. She tapped her foot and looked around for Roger, again. Finally she spotted him and waved. He walked quickly over to her.

"Hey, Rog!" she heard Mark call.

"I'll meet you later!" Roger shouted back.Mark shrugged and got on his bike, kicking his kickstand up, and pedaled away, his scarf flapping behind him in the crisp air.

Roger turned back to April. "Hi."

"Hi."

"You're shivering…" He took off his sweatshirt and offered it to her. He had a dark green T-shirt on under it.

"No…no, Roger, you have short sleeves on."

"Suit yourself then, I guess."

The two walked silently to the park and sat on a bench. They sat facing forward, not looking at each other, before Roger sighed, his breath freezing in the air before him. April looked over at him.

"April…" Roger didn't know where to start. "That night…it's been on my mind for awhile."

"What?"

"The party. You called me at Mark's, and we went over, and…shit happened, and the cops came."

April closed her eyes and remembered the night. She'd been stone drunk and couldn't remember much. Yes, Roger had been there, hadn't he? She'd called him?

"Yeah, I…remember."

"How…how much do you remember exactly?"

"Hardly anything. Why?"

Roger shook his head and opened his mouth. It was as though he couldn't figure out which words he needed to put together. "Josie…got us into a dare game…and she dared me to…to…" He stopped.

"To what?"

Roger turned a brilliant red, nose to ears to chin. "She dared me to kiss you."

Despite the weather and her lack of a coat, April suddenly felt very warm. "And…?"

"I did." He was matter-of-fact for the first time in this bizarre conversation.

April could barely breathe. "You did?"

"I did. And…it went on."

_Dammit, April, how can you not remember this?_

"So here's the thing that's bugging me." He took a deep breath. "I could've told Josie to shove it, but I didn't. I kissed you. You were drunk, and I knew you weren't thinking straight, and I kissed you."

"We can all do things we…regret, Roger…"

"That's exactly what's bugging me." For the first time, he looked her straight in the eyes. April loved those eyes. "I'm not sure I regretted it." He stopped, trying so hard to put the right words together. "If it were you…no. If it were me who was drunk that night…and Josie had dared you to kiss me…would you have?"

April looked at her lap. She opened her mouth but couldn't speak.

"April?" He put a finger under her chin and tilted it gently upward to face him again, but April almost couldn't bear those eyes.

"I don't know what I think."

"You don't need to think," Roger said—was he irritated? "You need to feel."

"I…I don't even know…how I feel." April's lip quivered and a tear spilled out of each eye. Roger wiped them away with his fingers. "What did you want me to say?" She looked back up at him. "What were you expecting me to say?" She suddenly felt angry. At herself, even at him, though it wasn't his fault; somewhere in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't either of their faults. Well, more hers than his, definitely. She stood up and turned to leave the park.

"April, wait!"

"What?" she screamed. A lady walking her dog gave her a glare, but April didn't care.

"Don't go."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because…" Roger had leapt from the bench and followed her. April turned to go, but Roger grabbed her arm.

"Let go of me!"

"April…look at me, just for a second…" Roger was pleading. April couldn't refuse. She turned to him.

He put a hand behind her neck, leaned gently to her and pressed his lips to hers.

April closed her eyes and surrendered immediately. She became lost in his kiss. She pressed herself to him, feeling his warmth. She parted her lips a little to let his tongue in. She pushed him toward the bench, and they ignored the chill of the metal to sit as they kissed. April wrapped her legs around him, and Roger put his arms on her back.

Roger broke the kiss to gasp "Oh, God, this is a million times better than last time…" He planted kisses on her neck as April giggled.

"Mm, and I'll remember this one...now shut up, we're talking too much…" Their lips found each other's again.

Roger Davis and April Taylor didn't care about the cold. They sat on the bench in the park in Scarsdale for hours, each living out their secret fantasies. They didn't notice the lady with the dog, as she turned and pass them again, roll her eyes and heave an enormous sigh. They didn't notice the awed five-year-old girl who stood silently and watched them for a full ten minutes. They didn't notice that the world spun, that a pale sun cast a long shadow on the barren trees. They had no thought for anyone but each other; none for Mark, who would wait until dark and hear no word of his friend, for April's parents, who had technically grounded her, for the Cohens or Mrs. Davis. No, they only saw each other. They didn't notice anything else.

They didn't even notice, until after they had finally broke apart gasping, never letting go of one another's hands, that it had begun to snow.

* * *

**I have never written a romance before, so please tell me how I did. Next will be the uber-dramatic and sad Angel chapter. Then I want a holiday chapter, so I'll be working myself very hard to get these out in time. Enjoy and thanks for those who have already reviewed (please review me!)**


	7. Part 7: And It's Beginning to Snow

**Part 7—And It's Beginning to Snow**

Angel and Mimi sat in Mimi's bedroom—or rather, her segment of the tiny apartment. It was a little bigger than an office cubicle, and contained very little. Mimi's small bed, pushed against the wall, a mirror with stickers on it, a shelf containing books and a little-girlish flowered makeup case. They sat on the little bed, its comforter soft. Angel drummed with his hands on the bed's frame. They sat rather silently.

Angel wanted to tell Mimi about him. He hadn't told anyone, ever, not even his mother. But he and Mimi had made such good friends over the last two weeks, since he'd met her. She had such a fire in her; he'd loved that immediately. There was no reason he shouldn't tell her; she'd already been okay when he told her he was gay. If she wasn't okay with this, he couldn't be her friend at all. It was better now than later.

"Mimi, chica?"

"Yeh?"

"I…you know I'm gay, right?"

"Yes, honey, you told me."

"Well, there's a bit more."

"Yes?" Silence. "Angel, honey, you can tell me anything."

"I…I want to be a girl," Angel told her. "I had that lipgloss, remember?"

"Yes…" Mimi seemed unfazed. Angel took heart and kept going.

"It wasn't for Mami, it was for me. I go to the stores and try the makeup samples. I try on wigs in costume stores. I…I'm pretty as a girl."

Mimi hugged her friend tightly. "I'm glad you told me, Angel." She let him go. "Would you like me to make you up?"

"I'd love it, Mimi," Angel whispered. A huge weight was off his shoulders now.

Mimi left the bed and bustled over to her shelf, where she plucked her makeup kit from its resting place and zipped it open. She rooted around in it and pulled out a few little cases.

"Okay, Angel. C'mere."

Angel was mesmerized as the younger girl snapped the case open and methodically rubbed the little brush over the colored rectangle. She smeared a brown around his face ("to take the shine away," she said) before dusting his cheeks with blush. After studying for a moment, she selected a palate of eyeshadow and applied a few coats to Angel's delicate eyelids. For good measure, she put mascara on his wispy lashes.

"Didja bring your own gloss?"

Angel nodded and held up a LipSmacker.

"Oh, that won't go. Here." She pulled out lipstick—real, beautiful red lipstick—and uncased it like a knight unsheathing a sword.

"This is new stuff; I haven't used it yet. It can be yours."

Angel told himself not to cry at his friend's generosity. _Don't smear all this lovely makeup. _

The lipstick tickled as it went on. Angel's lips were full and pouty. Mimi recapped the lipstick and handed it to Angel, who accepted it wordlessly. Mimi added a tickly trickle of liquid eyeliner to finish up before declaring him "beautiful." The word rang in Angel's head before he stood to face Mimi's mirror.

His throat caught. He had to reach out and touch his reflection, to make sure it wasn't a mirage; that it wouldn't melt in his hand. It was amazing. "Mimi, you are a genius," he whispered.

"Angel…wow." The two stared silently at the face in the mirror before Mimi became the businesslike costume artist once again. "You need clothes. You're small; you can use some of mine."

She pulled two drawers from under her bed. She rooted in them before selecting a flowered skirt and a burgundy crossover sweater. "This goes under it," she said as Angel picked up the sweater, tossing him a white t-shirt. "I'll go, and you change."

She shut the door as she left, and Angel, shaking, shed his jeans and his too-big shirt. He pulled on the skirt awkwardly over his bony knees and tossed the t-shirt on, the sweater following on top. "Mimi, I'm done," he called. He couldn't look at the mirror without her.

She came in and looked at him, wide-eyed. "Angel…"

"Does it look that ridiculous? I'm sorry; I'll take them off right now." Angel blushed through his makeup.

"Oh, honey, no…" Mimi was speechless. "It's gorgeous. You are…you are really beautiful."

Angel turned and looked. He couldn't breathe. The colors picked out red in his cheeks and brown in his eyes. He wanted to hug his reflection, kiss it, jump up and down and scream. Instead he stood on the spot and shook.

A beep from the pile of clothes he'd shed brought him quickly back to earth. "Oh, God!" he yelled. "Mimi, I have to go!" She left the room, and he shed the beautiful clothes quickly, tossing them at the door, and replacing his own clothes. The beeper continued to make its dreadful sound.

"Take the clothes, Angel!" Angel grabbed up the clothes.

"Thank you," he whispered, and ran with all his might back to his own apartment.

"Mama, I got your beep, Mama, are you okay?" His mother lay on the bed, coated in all the blankets and clothes they had.

They didn't know what was wrong. A few years ago she'd begun to get sick more and more, worse and worse. And now she'd picked up the cold from hell. She ran a high fever and coughed as though her throat was being scraped out. Last week she'd finally left her ill-paying job, and lay in bed. Angel only briefly left her side, and was summoned back by the beep. He was the only one who could do anything for her; they certainly couldn't pay a doctor.

"Angelo mio," she whispered, and Angel's heart twisted. Angelo mio: angel of mine.

"Mama, do you need to eat?" There was no food and he knew it, but he'd find her some if it was the last thing he did.

"Angelo, no puedo comer."

"Of course you can eat, Mama."

"No…Angelo, mirame."

He looked at her. She reverted to broken English.

"I love you, Dumott, and you know it. I shiver here in this filthy room, and I know I no may get up off this bed."  
"Mother, don't say that, Mama, please…" Angel looked down. His mother weakly cupped his cheeks and made him face her.

"I need you to be strong, Angelo mio. I need you to be my little man."

Little man. That was it. He had to lie to his mother now.

"Yes, Mama, of course, I will be your little man."

"Good," his mother said. She laid her head back and fell asleep.

Angel sat up with his mother all night, refusing to cry. He could see she was near death. She wasn't the first to die in this slum of a building. Whatever had weakened her would take its toll soon.

In the morning she awoke and cradled him gently. Then the tears fell. They burned on her hot arms.

"Angelo," she whispered late the following night, and he looked up from his vigil—he thought she'd been asleep.

"Mama?"

"Play for me. Only you can make me happy."

A lump swelled in his throat. He knew what was coming. He took the plastic tub from beside her bed and flipped it upside down, and the discarded chopsticks from a Chinese place. He laid the sticks on top of the tub and began to tap out slowly and quietly, a steady rhythm. A single tear spilled. More came as he crescendoed, whirling faster and faster, vision blurred. The world was a painful swirl of color and sound—the beat of his drum.

When he couldn't go on, when he'd hit one more time, he saw that his mother's labored breathing had ceased.

He laid a kiss on her cooling forehead and covered her with the blanket. He then rose and crossed to the doorway, and stood there, with only his tub, his sticks, and the outfit from Mimi.

Then he turned and ran, wherever he could. He'd have to go on his own now, armed with little education and only one friend. His mother was gone, and his father had left a long time ago.

He went down to the super to let him know that his mother was gone. That was all he said. He didn't want to deal with the fake sympathy, or the questions. He just left.

_I'll have to earn a living somehow, but I have nowhere to go now._ Mimi, Mimi might help him, he could find a job and pay some sort of rent to them…

He couldn't think anymore. He sat on the curb and watched a man with a squeegee almost get run over. He shivered in the cold, knowing he'd have to utterly reinvent his life. And then it hit him. If he were going to reinvent, he might as well really reinvent.

_I can be a she. A girl. Finally. I have the clothes now. I can be…I'll be Angel Dumott Schunard. And…_he picked up the drum and started to play again. He didn't mind the cold. People passed by him, and, when he finished, he was surprised to see a few quarters on his drum.

_It's a start, Miss Schunard,_ he thought, and couldn't help but grin through his misery.

He picked up his drum again and turned to go back to Mimi's.

It was a few minutes before he realized that the first flakes spiraled around him.

**I'm sorry it's so short! Don't kill me! I had lots of work and you _do_ want my holiday chapter. I hope to have it on Christmas (in my fantasy world) but it'll probably be a day or two after.**


	8. Part 8: Christmas Bells are Ringing

**Part 8—Christmas Bells are Ringing**

Mark wound his camera and set it aside. Roger's mother had moved out of the Cohens' and back into the house, only to realize that she couldn't cope with living there after what had happened for so many years. She and Roger were still with the Cohens until she could sell the house and buy another place nearby.

They'd celebrated Christmas. They weren't the religious types; they never went to church at all, but they sometimes got a tree and his mother had always managed to get him a present. The Cohens had had a dull Hanukah celebration. Mark had gotten a new still camera, though, which he'd already almost worn out. Roger had been spending time with April more and more lately. Mark had always secretly known that she and Roger would get together eventually.

Today was December 24. Christmas Eve. He turned on his camera and pointed it somewhat awkwardly at himself.

"December 24, 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Roger and Maureen and April, now Roger's girlfriend, are on their way for my little Christmas present to them." He shut the camera off again and heard a knock at his door before Maureen came in.

"Hey, Pookie," she said.

Mark stopped halfway to kiss her. She was becoming weirder and weirder to him lately. Not weird in the "God, Mark, you're so weird" culturally accepted standard of weird. She'd started to be a little more…well, foxy, actually, when they were together. She toyed with him. It was sexy, but "Pookie"? "Pookie?" he asked dumbly.

"My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Alan are over for Christmas and they call each other Pookie. I've been making fun of it so much I guess it just slipped out."

"Pookie, huh?"

"Sorry…" Mark stopped her with a finger to her lips.

"I can live with that," he whispered, pulling her closer. "I suppose." She closed her eyes as they kissed.

"So do you have it all ready?" Maureen asked as they drew apart.

"You bet."

"Merry Christmas," he said, handing her a little package.

She opened it eagerly, and out fell a belt that seemed to be made of thick ribbon. It was covered in silver studs in pretty designs.

"Did you…make this yourself?"

"Yeah, I did. Hours and hours with a Bedazzler." He grinned sheepishly.

"I love it," she whispered. "And I have something for you."

The package she handed him was rectangular. Mark ripped open the paper to reveal a mosaic frame that Maureen had tiled herself. In it was a picture of the two of them kissing, another of his stills. It had been blown up to fit. "Wow…" He stared at it for a moment before imitating the action in the photo.

Roger flung the door open, April under his arm. They both wore Santa hats. He saw them kissing. "Oopsie," he said, and left again.

"Come back in, Rog," Mark yelled.

When April and Roger, cuddling, had settled themselves on Roger's mattress, and Maureen sat on his bed, Mark turned the camera on (Roger groaned) and panned it to all of them.

"Here we are, about to enjoy our holidays," he intoned. "We start off with some Christmas cheer." He opened the closet and pulled out a tree.

Roger whooped, April giggled, Maureen choked. It looked like the Charlie Brown tree. It was tiny and looked unhealthy. It had probably been living in his closet in a water dish for a week. It even had a star ornament on top that made it sag to one side. For garlands, an old roll of film draped around it.

Finally, Maureen spoke. "It's lovely, Mark."

"Thank you. And now, may Maureen and I present…holiday spirit. Roger, we have something for you."

Mark pulled it out from under the bed and handed it to Roger. It had an enormous bow on it.

Roger gaped as he ran his fingers over the Fender guitar. His eyes glittered. "Mark…" he whispered. "How…"

"Maureen and I saved up some money, and she sold some art projects, and I got a load of money from Aunt Estelle for Hanukah, and a few people got tired of their Fender guitars."

"Mark…" Roger engulfed his best friend in an enormous hug. "It's perfect."

"I know, asshole."

Everyone laughed.

April draped her arms around Roger and began to nibble his neck. "Mmm," said Roger, "this is definitely the best Christmas I've ever had."

"Well, it ain't over yet," Mark said. He produced an obscene amount of sugar in the form of candy canes and cookies. "Dig in."  
They did. Everyone laughed and giggled, there was hugging and kissing. Maureen managed to swipe the camera and get some footage of Roger's Santa hat, which she'd stolen and placed on Mark's head. "Easy with the camera there!" he said protectively, as Maureen laughed and held it away. Eventually he managed to wrest it back, and ended with a shot of his little Christmas tree.

It really did look beautiful by the light of only a Christmas full moon reflecting in the snow.

**Sorry for all the shortness, but happy holidays to all my readers and there are more (and hopefully longer/more inspired/less sleep-deprived) installments on their way. Be forewarned that finals are coming up, though. And please tell me who you want to hear from next!**


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